America's western forests are in a deep crisis which nature intends to rectify. After years of fire suppression, over-harvest and now climate change induced drought, these forests are using disease and fire to cleanse themselves of the human stink. Efforts to log natural forests in order to restore them is simply the most recent misguided and potentially dangerous pseudo-management treatment. We will learn to live with nature - allowing large forests to do what forests do including burning and having pest epidemics - or we will perish

AP Wire | Drought, beetles may trump artificial forest thinning

Even as the nation devotes billions of dollars to artificially thinning crowded forests, a stressed-out Mother Nature is taking matters into her own hands on a catastrophic scale humans can't hope to match, scientists say. An epidemic of bark beetles is killing untold millions of trees from Alaska to Arizona. And an eight-year drought across the Southwest is killing many of the trees the beetles don't get.

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It as a good day for civil rights and environmental advocacy, as the Bush administration's stifling of dissent has failed. Greenpeace has been acquited of "sailor-mongering". Perhaps now the focus can return to illegal shipments of Brazilian mahogany.

Greenpeace wins U.S. case

A Miami federal judge on Wednesday sank the U.S. government's nationally publicized criminal case against the international environmental group Greenpeace because of lack of evidence. U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan issued a rare directed verdict finding Greenpeace not guilty midway through the trial -- after government attorneys tried to use a 19th century maritime law for the first time to prosecute an advocacy group's protest methods.

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Indiscriminate industrial forestry causes increased wildfire severity - illuminating the lies of the Bush Administration's "Healthy Forests" initiative.

Forest Mismanagement Contributes to Severity of Wildfires

The severe wildfires that have devastated the Western United States in recent years are in part the unintended legacy of decades of misguided forest management practices, according to a Duke University fire ecologist. Large wildfires now burning across California, Arizona and New Mexico show that the Bush administration's plan to "fireproof" the West's forests has backfired...

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TAKE ACTION
Thank Russia for Pledge, Ask President Putin for Swift Formal Ratification

** Follow breaking news at the ClimateArk -

President Vladimir Putin has stated Russia intends to rapidly ratify the Kyoto Treaty! Once completed, the first binding international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that are known to cause global climate change, will commence. President Putin is quoted as saying "we are in favour of the Kyoto process. We will rapidly move towards ratification of this protocol." The announcement coincides with the European Union's decision to back Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization.

Russia's imminent ratification of Kyoto represents a major international
breakthrough in cooperative efforts to address global climate change. This is the first time the President has stated so firmly and unequivocally that Russia will ratify Kyoto. Assuming that ratification does in fact occur - the Kyoto Treaty will now come into force. And it is highly likely recalcitrant, obstructionist governments such as the United States and Australia will eventually ratify as well.

Though the treaty makes only modest gains in the restraint of greenhouse gas emissions, its importance lies in the establishment of a binding framework to monitor and reduce carbon dioxide emissions in particular. Kyoto is an important first step in a long journey to address climate change through reductions in carbon dioxide and other emissions, renewable energy, energy conservation and ending deforestation.

Many, many people and organizations have worked for years in support of the Kyoto Treaty. Forests.org and you have done our own small part, having sent hundreds of thousand of emails in support of the treaty. Over the past two years our network first successfully targeted Canada's ratification, and has relentlessly sought Russian ratification - apparently successfully. Though the most appropriate time for celebrating is as the signature dries on the ratification papers, Forests.org nonetheless is highly upbeat regarding the apparent imminent success of our Russian Kyoto ratification campaign.

Our long running and extensively used action alert urging Russian Kyoto ratification has been updated. Please take a moment to seal the deal -
congratulating Russia on its pledge and urging President Putin to formalize ratification sooner rather than later. This may prove critically important as the American Oil Presidency and the Global Oil Oligarchy will pull out all stops to intervene in order to stop this momentous occasion.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (0)

How terrestrial vegetation responds to climate change is a major factor in whether changes already in the pipeline can be adapted too or will prove cataclysmic. This is a huge question, for which the answer has major import for humanity's future and prospects for achieving global ecological sustainability. Clearly stabilizing emissions is of foremost importance given such uncertainty.

Climate Change Boom or Bust for Biodiversity?

Will climate change trigger mass extinctions or will new life bloom in its wake?

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (1)

The future of the Amazon rainforest is critically threatened by expanded infrastructure development that dramatically increases physical access to the Amazonian frontier. Rainforest loss and diminishment in the Amazon impacts the well-being and ecological sustainability of local peoples, Brazilians and all citizens of the World. Below is an update from Science magazine regarding the threats posed by new roads and other infrastructure development plans in the heart of the Amazon. Forests.org has been instrumental in bringing these scientific findings to a wider audience, and advocating for cancellation of the ill-conceived development plans.

In 2002 and 2003, the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon climbed to nearly 2.4 million hectares per year, driven by land speculation along the routes of new roads, cattle ranching, and soybean farming. This equals 11 football fields a minute. While the Brazilian government has stepped up satellite monitoring and involved additional ministries to address deforestation, they have steadfastly refused to cancel or significantly revise the large-scale infrastructure development plans predicted to eliminate the Amazon's large, intact and unfragmented rainforest expanses.

All governments have a profound responsibility to protect, conserve and restore natural habitats sufficient to maintain ecosystems and their species. No ecology, no economy or anything else. Given its jurisdiction over the Amazon, the Brazilian government and people are sacredly obligated to safeguard this global ecological engine - stewardship they are failing to provide. I concur with the leading rainforest scientists below, that by failing to "curtail its aggressive plans for infrastructure expansion, Brazil will fail to address one of the most critical root causes of Amazonian deforestation." Loss of the Amazon as an operable, non-fragmented whole will severely biologically impoverish the Earth - and contribute significantly to the possibility of global ecological Armageddon. Brazil and the World need an intact Amazon to live well and prosper.
g.b.

P.S. As always, this copyrighted article is reproduced for non-commercial use to benefit the struggle to conserve the Earth's rainforests. If you like the information, go buy Science magazine. Read and understand the disclaimer as a condition for email list membership at http://forests.org/info/disclaim.asp

*******************************

RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Deforestation in Amazonia
Source: Copyright 2004, Science, Vol 304, Issue 5674, 1109-1111 Date: May 21, 2004

In recent years, we and others have identified critical threats posed to the forests of Amazonia by the Brazilian government's plans to dramatically expand highways and other major infrastructure projects in the region (1-6). Our conclusions have been disputed by elements of the Brazilian government (7-10), which assert that a key assumption of our spatial models--that new roads and highways will continue to promote large-scale Amazonian deforestation, as they have done in the past--no longer applies. This is so, they argue, because of improvements in frontier governance and environmental-law enforcement, as well as changes in Brazilian public attitudes toward forests (7-10). As a consequence, the Brazilian government is proceeding with the largest expansion of highways, roads, power lines, gas lines, hydroelectric reservoirs, railroads, and river-channelization projects in the history of the Amazon (1-6).

In 2002 and 2003, the rate of deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia climbed to nearly 2.4 million hectares per year (see figure)--equivalent to 11 football fields a minute. This increase mostly resulted from rapid destruction of seasonal forest types in the southern and eastern parts of the basin; relative to preceding years (1990-2001), forest loss shot up by 48% in the states of Pará, Rondônia, Mato Grosso, and Acre (11). The increase was evidently driven by rising deforestation and land speculation along new highways and planned highway routes (12), and the dramatic growth of Amazonian cattle ranching (13) and industrial soybean farming (6, 14). Soybean farms promote some forest clearing directly, but have a much greater impact on deforestation by consuming cleared land, savanna, and ecotonal forests, thereby pushing ranchers and slash-and-burn farmers ever deeper into the forest frontier. Equally important, soybean farming provides a key economic and political impetus for massive infrastructure projects, which accelerate deforestation by other actors (6, 14).

Anticipating public alarm about the new deforestation figures, the Brazilian government recently announced new measures designed to slow Amazon forest loss. These measures include increased satellite monitoring of deforestation and the involvement of additional ministries--not just the Ministry of Environment--in efforts to reduce illegal deforestation and forest burning (12). These measures, in concert with the establishment of new protected or multiple-use areas in Amapa, Amazonas, and Acre, are a move in the right direction.

The new measures do not go far enough, however. They fail to address one of the most critical drivers of forest destruction: the rapid proliferation of new highways and other infrastructure, which greatly increases physical access to the Amazonian frontier. The Brazilian government plans to create interministerial working groups to recommend ways to reduce or mitigate project impacts, but is not considering the cancellation or significant delay of any major project. Indeed, just days after announcing the new anti-deforestation package, Brazilian President Lula demanded that his federal ministers find ways to circumvent environmental and other impediments to stalled infrastructure projects throughout the country, including 18 hydroelectric dams and 10,000 km of highways (15).

In the Amazon, new transportation projects frequently lead to a dramatic rise in illegal deforestation, logging, mining, and hunting activities (1-6). If Brazil criss-crosses the basin with thousands of kilometers of such projects, the net result, our models suggest, will be not only further increases in forest destruction, but fragmentation of surviving forests on an unprecedented spatial scale (1, 5). Many of the government's recently announced measures to slow forest loss are positive steps, but if it does not curtail its aggressive plans for infrastructure expansion, Brazil will fail to address one of the most critical root causes of Amazonian deforestation.

William F. Laurance,*
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute,
Apartado 2072,
Balboa,
Panama.

Ana K. M. Albernaz,
Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi,
Avenida Perimetral 190,
Belém, PA 66077-530,
Brazil.

Philip M. Fearnside,
Departamento de Ecologia,
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia,
C.P. 478,
Manaus,
AM 69011-970,
Brazil.

Heraldo L. Vasconcelos,
Instituto de Biologia,
Universidade Federal de Uberlândia,
C.P. 593, Uberlândia,
MG 38400-902,
Brazil.

Leandro V. Ferreira
Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi,
Avenida Perimetral 190,
Belém, PA 66077-530,
Brazil.

*To whom correspondence should be addressed.
E-mail: laurancew@tivoli.si.edu

References and Notes

1. W. F. Laurance et al., Science 291, 438 (2001).

2. W. F. Laurance, A. K. M. Albernaz, C. Da Costa, Environ. Conserv. 28, 305 (2001).

3. G. Carvalho, A. C. Barros, P. Moutinho, D. C. Nepstad, Nature 409, 131 (2001).

4. D. C. Nepstad et al., Forest Ecol. Manage. 154, 295 (2001).

5. W. F. Laurance et al., J. Biogeogr. 29, 737 (2002).

6. P. M. Fearnside, Environ. Manage. 30, 748 (2002).

7. D. Weber, "Ministério contesta estudo sobre devastação," O Estado de S. Paulo, 21 January 2001.

8. S. S. do Amaral, "Threat to the Amazon," The Independent, 26 January 2001.

9. R. Goidanich, Science dEbates, 26 January 2001 (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/eletters/291/5503/438).

10. J. P. Silveira et al., Science 292, 1651 (2001).

11. The net deforestation rate in these four states increased from 1.43 million ha year-1 from 1990-2001 to 2.12 million ha year-1 in 2002-2003, based on data from the Brazilian National Space Agency (www.inpe.br). Deforestation data for 2003 are a preliminary estimate.

12. Grupo Permanente de Trabalho Interministerial para a Redução dos Índices de Desmatamento da Amazônia Legal, Plano de Ação para a Prevenção e Controle do Desmatamento da Amazônia Legal (Presidência da República, Casa Civil, Brasília, 2004).

13. D. Kaimowitz, B. Mertens, S. Wunder, P. Pacheco, Hamburger Connection Fuels Amazon Destruction (Tech. Rep., Center for International Forest Research, Bogor, Indonesia, 2004).

14. P. M. Fearnside, Environ. Conserv. 28, 23 (2001).

15. "Lula quer a retomada de obras paralisadas," Amazonas em Tempo (Manaus, Brazil), 21 March 2004.

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Finally, post-fire restoration plans that are primarily concerned with restoring natural forests and watersheds, and not with heavy logging of wildlands and burned trees that are the basis of future natural forests.

OREGON: Conservationists Propose 400 Jobs on Biscuit Fire Restoration

A plan to create 400 new jobs in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area through a combination of watershed restoration efforts and commercial logging activities was unveiled by conservation groups Monday. Radio ads promoting the plan will air across western Oregon for the next two weeks. The Siskiyou Restoration Plan will focus on over 500 miles of road restoration on steep slopes and areas vulnerable to landslides. The plan includes commercial logging, but stays out of roadless areas, old growth reserves, Wild and Scenic River corridors and sensitive botanical areas.

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Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and partners have delivered yet another stunning victory for forests and climate as Bank of America has decided, on their prompting, to take new steps in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and protection of "intact" forest ecosystems. RAN's targeting of the global financial sector's environmental impacts continues to reap benefits, "helping the financial sector to live up to the ideals of a democratic economy... working to ensure that the natural capital of our global environment and the integrity of local communities are preserved indefinitely." This follows recent similar commitments by Citigroup, also motivated by RAN's campaigning. Bank of America's statement on the matter can be found at http://www.bankofamerica.com/newsroom/presskits/view.cfm?page=climateandforests

Indeed, it is very good news if intact forests that have never before been logged are to be exempt from commercial bank financed development and diminishment. It is heartening that RAN appears to have taken critiques from Forests.org onboard, and is now making clear that any industrial harvest of intact forests, even certified, is inappropriate.

The significance of the news depends critically upon defining "intact forests". This appears to mostly be composed of large areas of relatively natural primary forests - the preservation of which is a mainstay of the Forests.org network's message. Such areas are referred to within the forest conservation movement as primary, old-growth, wildlands, wilderness, ancient, first-growth and/or endangered forests. I realize we are striving for a term that encompasses more than just primary forests - that captures more of the spectrum of regenerating fragments and late successional secondary growth - but why can't the forest conservation movement be more precise and consistent with terminology? The term "intact forests" remains worryingly nebulous.

Such tentative undertakings, however promising, do raise other issues. The agreement does not adequately address the appropriateness of commercial financing of forest plantations (perhaps even genetically modified) as a climate change strategy. And measures to prevent replacement of secondary forests (that are less than intact) with plantations is weak. Sustainable economics will require restocking stores of natural forest capital, yet the agreement fails to achieve commitments to fund natural forest regeneration and restoration.

I note that World Resources Institute (WRI), who is to define "intact forests" and map where these forests occur, also takes financing from African logging companies. Both WRI and RAN must remain vigilante that advocating for protection of natural forests, while simultaneously partnering with commercial forest interests, does not become a conflict of interest. Monitoring and reforming forest destruction need some separation. WRI's analytic and RAN's campaigning skills must not be used as greenwash for continued, albeit slightly less damaging, diminishment and loss of intact and other forests.

And finally, I encourage RAN to make clear that these agreements with the financial industry are only the beginning of policies and reforms necessary to sustain natural capital - the store of nature's goods and services upon which all life and human economy depends. They are not the final word, and the expectation is they will become more strict, compulsory and ubiquitous. If RAN is to legitimately negotiate on behalf of the greens the rules that will determine a not insubstantial portion of the fate of the world's forests and climate, including giving a stamp of approval to reformed development activities in ancient forests that others have worked for decades to stop, they must be as inclusive and self-reflective as possible.

This said, I can think of few I would rather see on our side of the bargaining table. It is clear that RAN's finance campaign is on the cutting edge of environmental conservation and continues to rack up major victories. A good start indeed...

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are many opportunities to target ecological restoration to high-priority areas on a landscape, seeking to secure water and other ecological processes. Regional ecological sustainability planning needs to be intensified - seeking to ascertain the combination of protected, benignly managed and sustainable development zones sufficient to secure an areas environmental services.

SUSTAINABILITY: More Rehabilitated Wetlands in South Africa, More Water Supply

As South Africa's new government braces itself for the task of extending clean water supplies to more people, environmentalists are warning there may soon be little water to distribute if conservation efforts are not stepped up. They believe the country will run out of water by 2030 unless current water resources are better maintained. A key part of this challenge involves reclaiming areas known as wetlands.

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Spatially extensive environmental conservation which weds large protected areas with areas of human sustainable development are a prerequesite for global ecological sustainability. The greatest challenge ever to face humanity is to once again place it within the context of healthy, natural ecosystems.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Conservation 'needs wider view'

Global conservation efforts should focus strongly on whole ecosystems as well as individual species...

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There is no doubt that climate change is occuring. Climate skeptics will now try to protect their industrial interests by arguing we need to adapt to the change. The magnitude of the human impact is so severe that overemphasis upon adaptation would be a grave mistake. While there is still a small window of opportunity, the emphasis must be upon restructuring the economy to quickly and dramatically lower emissions.

Scientists claim final proof of global warming

POWERFUL evidence for global warming has been discovered by scientists funded by the US Government, demolishing the chief argument of sceptics who deny that the phenomenon is real.
A new analysis of satellite data has revealed that temperatures in a critical part of the atmosphere are rising much faster than previously thought, strengthening the scientific consensus that the world is warming at an unnatural rate. The discovery resolves one of the most contentious anomalies in climate science, which has often been invoked by the Bush Administration to question whether man-made global warming is happening.

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President Bush continues to lead as if there is no tomorrow, and if he is not stopped, there may not be. Despite pledges to uphold protections for roadless forests, his administration continues its stealthy dismantling of protections for America's last large wild forest landscapes. The Heritage Forests Campaign has issued a report which details the effects upon regional forests if federal protections were to be reversed at http://www.ourforests.org/localreports/index.html . And the comment period has commenced regarding the Bush administration's proposal to drill for natural gas in the Rocky Mountain Front - one of the most important wilderness areas in the continental United States. Comments regarding this ill-conceived project can be emailed to mt_blackleaf_eis@blm.gov during the government's scoping process which ends on June 1st. These are dangerous times - imperial war, inequity and injustice, combined with failing ecosystems make for a potent mix. It is up to progressive dark greens to enunciate a vision, and organize the movement, that will allow all humanity to emerge from the darkness.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (0)

President Bush is an ecological idiot savant. All the requirements of American civilization flow from the land and other ecosystems. The President is intent upon liquidating every last bit of wild nature. He must be stopped, these areas protected, and the age of ecological restoration ushered in; whereby large natural forest wildlands are allowed to expand and adjoining areas helped to recover old-growth characteristics.

Reversal of Roadless Rule Could Devastate National Forests

Potential changes by the Bush administration to the roadless rule threaten to destroy the pristine and wild character of more than 32 million acres of public land, according to a series of reports released by a forest advocacy group.

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